//------------------------------//
// Hunt 
// Story: Flames of the Rainbows 
// by ShadowFall 
//------------------------------//

        Stepping through the once running ship was ominous enough. 

        Knowing that the people that were supposed to be there were leaning against the wall, dead with bullet holes all over their lifeless bodies, only added to the discomfort the men in masks felt as they combed through the ship. They waded through the snow that had gotten on the floor of the abandoned yacht, scanning their surroundings with the flashlights mounted on their guns.

        It was currently pitch-black dark inside of the boat, which was off putting, considering that the other White Mask technicians had installed lighting along the walls. Those were off, too.

“Stay together. They should be down this hall.”

Then, one of the White Mask troopers stepped on a pile of snow, and instantly, the sound of metal clamps biting up and burrowing into his leg caused a shrill cry of pain in the darkness.

“Oh god! My leg!” he cried out, what looked to be a sort of bear trap-like device that had his foot clamped to a panel on the ground. When another White Mask went over to help him, he too stepped on a trap buried under the thin layer of snow inside the ship, clamping him in place too.

It was all of a sudden when a woman, holding an S-90 Shotgun burst from a pile of snow that had gathered in a corner of the hallway started to blast buckshot at the enemies, who were only roughly three to four meters away from the ambusher.

She dropped three of the eight White Masks, with the shotgun, and quickly retreated around the corner of the hallway’s end.

Three White Masks lay mutilated, two of which were the ones caught in the traps. As the other six started to pursue, the hallway wall behind them suddenly blasted apart, a man holding a C8-SFW rifle with an underbarrel mounted “Skeleton Key” shotgun emerged through the wall. Since it was frozen solid in the chilling temperature, the wall shattered into pieces as the shotgun attachment blasted into it.

He came out, and fired his rifle into the group’s backs, filling three more unlucky terrorists with precise fire. He quickly retreated again, leaving only two left.

One of the remaining White Masks immediately turned away from the bloodshed, running to escape his two assailants.

“Fuck! Fuck!” he shouted as he fled the scene, his other White Mask comrade behind him. They were running towards another doorway to escape the two assailants, but the one behind noticed far too late.

There was a subtle laser that was shining at the bottom of the door.

“No, no, no, no!” he reached out to stop the soldier in front of him, but for the White Masks, it was over . The one in front tripped the laser, causing a massive explosion to erupt from the right side of the door. The one in front was thrown like a ragdoll across the room after he got inside, over one hundred ball-bearings had been thrown into his body from the directional charge. 

For the one who was behind, he was thrown sideways and smashed his head against the wall. He nearly blacked out from the injury, and saw that the frozen and wooden door frame that was once there had embedded into his stomach as shrapnel, blood pouring from his coat and onto his hands.

A man in green camouflage, unlike the other two assailants in coats, walked out, leveled his VSN submachine gun to the White Mask’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Then, the woman, and two men came together.

“Damn, that was a true hunt.” Kapkan nodded to Frost, the woman operator, “I am glad to be of assistance to you both.”

Buck, the other man smiled, “Fuck, those White Masks are idiots. They should have known something was wrong when the snow got indoors. By the way, that was a smart idea to conceal your “welcome mats”, Frost.”

“Thanks. I learn from the best.” Frost patted Kapkan’s shoulder, “Isn’t your guys’ Stealth Hawk picking us up?”

“Yes, it should be arriving soon. Let’s get out and scan the perimeter, now.” Kapkan took his SMG and motioned for the Canadians to follow.

When the got to the top, their night vision goggles clearly lit up around them. The gigantic white behemoths of icebergs were certainly intimidating to look at, but they focused more on the surrounding water below them.

“Clear on my side.” Buck called out.

“Same here.” Kapkan sounded off.

“Looks good here.” Frost nodded.

Then, the Stealth Hawk radioed in.

“This is Jackal-1, we have affirmative confirmation on your strobes. We are beginning our approach to the LZ, over.” the pilot of the helo called out over the radio.

“Roger that, Jackal-1, we have the LZ secure, and the objective has been neutralised.” Frost radioed back.

By neutralised, they meant dumped over the side of the boat, strapped with C4, and blasted to the bottom of the sea.

Then, Kapkan narrowed his eyes.

“Binoculars. Now.”

Kapkan was handed the pair from Buck, and placed it to his IRNV goggles. Looking through, he saw two faint lights approaching the ship from the east, and through the binoculars, there were two boats, both with some sort of small floodlight on them. They were approaching fast.

“Are we expecting any small boats by any chance?” Buck radioed in.

“Not that I’m aware of. We’ll be deploying a Raven drone to check it out.” the Stealth Hawk pilot called back, “Vega, get that drone out.”

The door gunner of the helicopter got off of his weapon, took the drone that was currently folded in a case, unfolded it, and threw it out the holding doors.

“UAV deployed.” Vega spoke as the drone began to travel towards the incoming boats. The helicopter didn’t want to risk a search-light identification by flying lower towards the boats, because the Stealth Hawk wasn’t meant to take direct fire from quite possibly 50. Cal machine guns that could be on the boats.

The drone approached, and through its night vision camera, relayed information to Vega’s tablet. The distinct white masks of the passengers confirmed the hostility of the boat.

“Be advised, two hostile watercraft confirmed, estimated eight soldiers on each.” Vega radioed in.

“Fuck… we can’t fight that off…” Buck swore.

Then, the helicopter pilot began to speak again.

“This is Jackel-1, we are fully loaded and ready to engage any hostiles.” the pilot gave the announcement after Vega flashed him the thumbs up, indicating that his M134 Minigun was spooled up and ready to fire.

“Roger that, Jackel-1. We got a plan. Get that helo behind an iceberg, and we will start to fire at the enemy at the top of the ship. Once we do, you are cleared to engage the hostiles.” Kapkan and his team were already repositioning.

“Copy that, changing position.”

The Stealth Hawk moved away and flew over towards an iceberg, putting it in between the enemy boats and the helicopter.

The floodlights from the boats shone onto the ship, and the operators all fired their guns. As they fired back at the boats, the incoming bullets would draw the attention of the White Masks to them instead of what lurked behind the iceberg.

The loud noises of the boats’ motors drowned out the dampened sounds of the Stealth Hawk’s rotors.

“Jackel-1, you are clear to engage!” Frost gave the order.

The helicopter immediately moved out behind the iceberg, and started in a menacing beeline towards the small aluminum boats. The White Masks had no idea what was hurtling above them in the darkness.

Vega lined up the IR laser mounted on the Minigun straight onto the lead boat, the green beam following the boat’s every movement. Then, he held down the trigger. The Minigun’s six barrels immediately spun up and started to spit out 7.62 mm tracer ammunition at an astonishing 100 bullets every second, completely decimating the first boat in a three second burst, crumpling the aluminum like paper, and blasting the gastank of the motor in a fiery display.

From the boat, it looked like a tail made of fire had sprouted from the helicopter and just caused one of the boats to vanish, replacing it with a fireball. The occupants on the other boat heard the roar of the Minigun, and immediately turned their boat to try and avoid the inevitable second burst. 

Vega simply aligned the laser ahead of the boat, and pressed the two buttons down, sending forth another decimating hail of bullets, letting the White Masks simply run into the maelstrom of lead that rained from above. At once, the boat split apart into two, now seeing that it had been made of grey-painted wood. The splinters caught fire from the tracers, and the Minigun stopped firing, the incessant buzzing noise ceasing.

Vega smiled at the turreted gun, and patted it, “Damn... screw the M60, I’m sticking with this one now.”





        “Breach!” 

        The wall was smashed down by Sledge’s hammer, with Montagne at the lead of the pack, his shield fully extended over his legs, top, and sides as Ash entered from behind him. She fired her rifle once, taking out the White Mask on her side as Sledge shot down the one of his left.

        “Clear!” Montagne called out as he moved into the hallway, a hail of gunfire pelting against his shield. He quickly retreated back in the room.

        “Fuck! We’re pinned down!” Sledge cursed.

        “No we’re not!” Ash took her specialised M120 CREM, or Compact Rifle Entry Munition breaching grenade, and slid in a fresh round into the launcher. She immediately held it up and aimed at the wall that would take them away from the hallway. 

        She fired the launcher, and the grenade stuck into the wall. A brief second was given for it to drill itself in, and blast the wall apart.

        “This way!” Ash motioned for the operators to hurry through the opened wall away from the killing zone in the hallway. Upon doing this, they entered into a shower room, and proceeded to flank their way through the many rooms of the meth house. Coming around behind the riflemen in the hallway, they shot them down onto the floor.

        Then, they approached the second floor of the building. Seeing a camera mounted on the wall light up, Sledge immediately shot the device.

        “They know we’re going up this way.” Sledge shook his head, “Other way around. Glaz, what do you see out there?” 

        The sniper called over the radio, “I see two on the second floor, both aiming where you once were. Still an unknown amount more.”

        “Roger, we’re flanking again.” Montagne spoke again.

        “Marking enemies with the drones.” Rook called out as he was currently operating the drones that were inside the building with his controller, planting red dots all over the second story.

        The team came around to the second staircase, and stopped at the base.

        “Sledge, you stay with me. Ash, get outside and breach from the east windows. Glaz, sniper support on the west. And Rook, don’t stop marking those enemies.” Montagne ordered.

        “On it.” Ash quickly exited out of the building while the other two operators acknowledged as well.

        Once Ash rapelled up to the balcony of the second floor, she got her grenade launcher ready with another breaching round.

        “Ready!”

        “Drones are marking!”

        “I have eyes!”

        Montagne looked back at Sledge.

        “Breach!” 

        Sledge knocked the door straight off its hinges with his sledgehammer, allowing Montagne to proceed, and Ash had blasted the window open with her breaching round. 

        The red dots showed every enemy’s location.

        Their gunsights tracked the dots as they slowly moved around the corner, putting a shot into the White Mask’s chests and heads when they rounded each bend, clearing out the second floor in amazing time.

        Glaz blasted one’s head into a bloody pulp through the poorly maintained wooden wall of the house with his sniper rifle, and shot another one in the neck as he was moving away from the other three operators wreaking havoc in the house.

        “Clear!”

        “Clear!”

        Sledge and Ash called out at the same time as they rounded a corner, and met guns.

        The operators wasted no time running down to the basement where the only location for the portal’s whereabouts were left.

        Sure enough, it was barricaded up through a hallway.

        Montagne didn’t have to say anything, and neither did Sledge. Ash had her launcher ready, and she fired. The wooden barricade was reduced to splinters as Montagne’s extendable shield deployed its armored panels to fully protect him and whoever was behind. Gunfire erupted from the end of the hallway, but was quickly silenced by a frag grenade thrown by Sledge.

        The mangled screams of the White Masks caught in the storm of shrapnel died as fast as they were shouted from the messy explosion.

        “Clear!”

        A quick sweep of the room showed no more signs of hostiles.

        Then, they turned into a room, and the portal was right there. Cables were all over it, and the design of the archway looked similar to the photos in Afghanistan. 

        “We found the objective- ARGH!” Ash fell down as she turned to her left, and a White Mask that had emerged from a tunnel in the back of the basement fired a shotgun at her straight in the chest, and turned immediately to flee.

        “Ash has been hit! Hostile is fleeing!” Sledge bent over Ash and started to remove her top clothing to see if her armor could have possibly saved her.

        When the White Mask emerged outside, he was blasted in the back of the head by Glaz’s OTS-03 sniper rifle.

        “Not a chance.” Glaz let go of his exhale once his target dropped like a rock.

        As the operators looked over Ash, she suddenly held up her arm, and pushed away Sledge. She took out what was one of Rook’s R1N armor plates, filled to the center’s brim with buckshot, and dropped it on the floor.

        “Fuck… remind me to trust the French when he makes my armor.” Ash chuckled and was helped to her feet by Montagne.

        The portal lay in front of them, ready to be destroyed.

        Only there was one thing.

        “Fuck. We don’t have C4, and I’m out of breaching explosives.” Ash shook her head.

        “We got nothing out here.” Glaz radioed in, with Rook also shaking his head.

        “Sledge, you got another grenade left?”

        Sledge didn’t respond. He stared at the portal under his gas mask, the SAS taking his sledgehammer in his hand.

        “Is he…?” Ash asked.

        “He is. Back away.” Montagne backed up along with Ash.

        Parts of the portal were thrown everywhere as Sledge went to town on the contraption, never taking a single break in decimating the portal with his hammer. Swing after swing, and the portal just seemed to chunk apart all over the place, pieces thrown clear across the room.

        “Jesus fucking Christ…” Ash stared in awe at the sheer destruction a human with a hammer was able to inflict.





        “Oh… how funny. I was just about to ask if you could help. But…”

        Twilight giggled at Celestia, “Of course I’d help. We got to get back in contact with those guys. And it shouldn’t be too challenging. I can alter the frequency rather easily to match their world’s, modify the machine to enter in even more precise coordinates, and amplify the power to allow nearly limitless beings to travel between worlds.”

        “And the best part, we’d get to control it.” Twilight found herself giddy with joy after making her recovery, thanks to the sped-up healing from unicorn magic.

        “Isn’t science and magic amazing?!” Twilight beamed to her former mentor, earning a laugh from her too.

        “Alright, let’s get to work on this portal.” Celestia placed her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, “Together.”